Federal guidance reports are used by federal and state agencies in developing radiation Energy given off as either particles or rays. protection regulations and standards to protect the American public from harmful effects of radiation. EPA's federal guidance authority allows EPA to provide advice to federal agencies about radiation matters directly or indirectly affecting public health.
There are two types of federal guidance:
On this page:
External Exposure to Radionuclides in Air, Water and Soil
This federal guidance updates and expands the 1993 Federal Guidance Report No. 12 (FGR 12), providing age-specific reference person effective dose rate coefficients for 1,252 radionuclides based on external exposure to radionuclides distributed in air, water or soil.
Compared to FGR 12, FGR 15 incorporates six different age groups (whereas FGR 12 had one), updated tissue weighting factors (as recommended in ICRP Publication 103) and radionuclide decay data (as provided in ICRP Publication 107), and improved computing power to provide more precise calculations.
Radiation Protection Guidance for Diagnostic and Interventional X-Ray Procedures
This federal guidance provides federal facilities that use diagnostic and interventional x-ray equipment with recommendations for keeping patient doses as low as reasonably achievable without compromising the quality of patient care. The Interagency Working Group on Medical Radiation updated this guidance to address the significant increase in the use of digital imaging technology, such as CT scans, and high dose procedures, such as interventional fluoroscopy. This report supersedes Federal Guidance Report No. 9.
This report provides methods and data for estimating risks due to both internal and external radionuclide Radioactive forms of elements are called radionuclides. Radium-226, Cesium-137, and Strontium-90 are examples of radionuclides. exposures. It includes coefficients for assessing cancer risks from environmental exposure to about 800 radionuclides. Both mortality and incidence risk The probability of injury, disease or death from exposure to a hazard. Radiation risk may refer to all excess cancers caused by radiation exposure (incidence risk) or only excess fatal cancers (mortality risk). Risk may be expressed as a percent, a fraction, or a decimal value. For example, a 1% excess risk of cancer incidence is the same as a 1 in a hundred (1/100) risk or a risk of 0.01. coefficients are tabulated for inhalation, food and water ingestion, submersion in air and exposure to uniform soil concentrations. The age-averaged coefficients consider age-specific intake rates, dose modeling and risk modeling. The information presented in this report is for use in assessing risks from radionuclide exposure in a variety of applications ranging from environmental impact analyses of specific sites to the general analyses that support rulemaking.
Background Material for the Development of Radiation Protection Standards: Protective Action Guides for Strontium-89, Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 (Federal Radiation Council)
This report provides background material used in the development of guidance for federal agencies in planning activities to protect the population from strontium-89, strontium-90, and cesium-137 for certain situations.
Revised Fallout Estimates for 1964-1965 and Verification of the 1963 Predictions (Federal Radiation Council)
This report documented a study showing that the predictions in the Federal Radiation Council Report No. 4 were substantially correct, and the conclusions in that report still apply.
Radiation Protection Guidance to Federal Agencies for Occupational Exposure
This guidance provides general principles and specifies the numerical primary guides for limiting worker exposure. It applies to all workers who are exposed to radiation in the course of their work, either as employees of institutions and companies subject to Federal regulation or as Federal employees.